Tea Party Stirs The Culture Wars
There was no way that the Tea Party crowd was not going to slime down into the culture wars. That it took so long is the only surprising part to this story. But here they come to challenge the nation over the sensitive topics that make us who we are as individuals. You know the array of topics that are red-meat ones for fundraising letters and brawling matches on television talk shows. The issues over privacy, your body, sex, and things that are really no one else’s business are about to explode again across society.
Just another reason to love the Tea Party!
While the economy and national red ink dominated the elections this fall we all knew that once power touched these inexperienced ones who woke up one morning and said ” I want to a member of Congress.” or “I am smart enough to be a State Representative” everything would turn ugly.
Well, welcome to UGLY. (WordPress has ‘issues’ so no link can be added. From The Washington Post.)
But major GOP gains in state legislatures across the country – where policy on social issues is often set – left cultural conservatives newly empowered. Opponents of same-sex marriage, for instance, now see an opportunity to block or even reverse recent gains by gay rights advocates in Minnesota and New Hampshire.
“The flip that has occurred is unprecedented and historic,” said Brian S. Brown, president of one such group, the National Organization for Marriage. “I wouldn’t have expected anything like this.”
Brown’s organization poured $2.5 million into state races this year, investing in more than 100 state legislative candidates. The group focused particularly on Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Iowa, four states grappling with the same-sex marriage issue.
In North Carolina, Christian groups have promised to push for greater restrictions on abortions and a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. And liberal groups are lining up to protect the Healthy Youth Act, which requires most students in grades 7 through 9 to learn about contraception in addition to abstinence – a requirement conservative groups oppose.
In Wisconsin, Governor-elect Scott Walker (R) has said he opposes the state’s expansion earlier this year of a program that provides free birth control to low-income people and youth as young as 15. His agenda will be helped along by the legislature, which will now be controlled by Republicans.
Abortion foes say they expect several states where Republicans made significant gains to consider barring, under the new federal health-care overhaul, some private insurance companies from covering abortions as part of their routine plans. So far, Arizona, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana have passed such legislation.
“Ninety percent of pro-life legislation happens at the state level, so the landscape change that we have now is huge,” said Daniel McConchie, vice president of governmental affairs at Americans United for Life, an antiabortion group.
